I don’t know whether I really like this for its sincerity and humanity, or really feel it’s just wrong. I’m not at all sure what to make of it…
It’s almost exactly nine years to the day since Ocado started in a temporary office in central London, and at this festive time of the year we wanted to take this opportunity to tell you a bit more about why we do what we do. We started out to ‘change the way people shopped for groceries’, and embarked upon the creation of a service that saves you from going round the supermarket every week.
At first, we thought that we could change the way people shopped just by offering a service that turned up on time and brought what you ordered. As we have gone along we have learnt that it is incredibly important to do so much more than that. We love to listen to our customers and improve our service based on your feedback. This year we have done lots of listening: on delivery routes, in ‘focus groups’ here at our offices, and via several major surveys by phone and web. Thank you to all of you who helped us by telling us, good and bad, what you think of Ocado.
We believe we have made more improvements to our service in 2008 than in any other year: we cut our prices through Tesco Price Match when we saw the early signs of recession, increased our range by over a third including new ranges of magazines, flowers, fresh bread and new cheaper ‘Everyday’ products, became the first retailer to guarantee product life on our website, and introduced text message reminders and many helpful changes to our website. We’ve also spent a lot of time working on our carbon footprint, and we were extremely proud when an independent carbon consultant verified that shopping with Ocado was as green as walking to a supermarket and buying food there.
You have rewarded us by helping us to recruit new customers and continuing to spend your hard-earned money with us. We’re already working on an even bigger list of initiatives for 2009; the current economic climate will not shrink our aspirations to provide a fantastic service that is better for everyone than visiting the supermarket. You will continue to see improvements to our website, our product range, and we will also work hard to maintain our levels of service.
So at this festive time we want to wish you a merry Christmas and holiday season and send our best wishes for the new year ahead. There seems to be a cloud of bad news affecting life at the moment, so perhaps we all need to reflect on the good things that have happened in 2008. For us in our professional lives at Ocado that’s making our service to you a bit better. Outside of Ocado that’s telling someone close to us how much we love them. We hope that you too are able to share that love with people close to you at this special time of the year. Life’s too unpredictable not to.
With best wishes for Christmas and 2009.
One Comment
i agree – i don’t know what to make of it either. my first reaction is, why didn’t i get it since i buy from them every 2 weeks? 2nd reaction is cynicism – what do i care about their focus groups in their office? what are they trying to sell me or get me to do? is this some attempt to reinforce my loyalty to them? if so, it’s not working. to my mind Ocado is still a posh grocery sho i.e. waitrose online and that’s why i use them. 3rd reaction – what a lot of text. if you hadn’t posted it on your blog mark, i probably would have given up by the second sentence. maybe it’s just me being a bit bah humbug, but basically, i’m not impressed. a big “happy christmas, get fat on us” would have gone down better
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